Filipino lawyer wins Ramon Magsaysay award
Filipino lawyer wins Ramon Magsaysay award
Reuters, Manila
A Philippine lawyer who has helped recover nearly US$700 million
stashed away in Swiss banks by late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was
awarded Asia's equivalent of the Nobel prize on Monday.
The Manila-based Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation named Haydee
Yorac as one of this year's seven winners for her work in
government service as the leading lawyer searching and recovering
ill-gotten Marcos wealth.
Marcos and his wife Imelda are suspected of plundering up to
$10 billion during his two-decade rule that ended in a peaceful
"People Power" revolt in February 1986.
"Ms Yorac is being recognized for building the people's
confidence in government through service of exceptional integrity
and rigor and her unwavering pursuit of the rule of law in the
Philippines," the foundation said in a statement.
Yorac, 62, is the feisty head of the Presidential Commission
on Good Government, the state agency tasked with recovering the
Marcos's ill-gotten wealth.
She first served in government in the late 1980s as human
rights commissioner before becoming elections commissioner, head
of an anti-corruption agency and finally head of the agency
hunting the Marcos billions.
Under her leadership, the agency made the single largest
recovery of Marcos money in 18 years after the Philippine Supreme
Court awarded $658 million from a Swiss account and held in
escrow at the Philippine National Bank, to the government last
January.
Yorac, who will receive $50,000 for her award, lives with her
sister and five dogs.
The other award winners were:
- Jiang Yanyong, a retired military doctor from China who fought
the deadly threat of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS),
for public service;
- Prayong Ronnarong, a Thai farmer, for community leadership;
- Abdullah Abu Sayeed of Bangladesh for journalism, literature
and creative communication arts;
- Filipino Benjamin Abadiano for emergent leadership, and;
- Indian Laxminarayan Ramdas and Pakistani Ibn Abdur Rehman for
peace and international understanding.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award was established in 1957 in honor of
the third Philippine president to recognize people who show
selfless service.